1 by mereDITH blankinship

Image by Morgan Higby-Flowers

VERONICA SAYS

for the alter-egos of Petro Moysaenko

  Veronica says
  keep the knife out of
  its sheath

  Veronica is a prism
  Veronica fizzes & thwacks 
  She yawns like a chainsaw
  at the books on the table
  asks for a glass of cooled gin

  Veronica is stark, uninhibited 
  at brunch flossing
  her reflection in the window
  while people wait outside
  Veronica wanted me to tell you
  she put the razor blades 
  in the champagne punch

  Some nights Veronica has that doggy 
  kind of feeling inspiration
  for late-night good girls eating
  bunnies like chicken
  wings with their fingers

  Other times she's all static

  She's at the top of the pyramid 
  scheme shoving basic bitches
  back down it's the limelight
  downtown
  A masterpiece flown
  into unrecognizable shapes

  Veronica takes & bakes them all 
  into puffed-out hairy chests parading
  down the lane on Easter
  She wears an apron stained with cum
  & licks her fingers twice, smokes
  a blunt with her moms in the after

  Let me be clear: Veronica 
  has nothing to do with the fucking weather
  Veronica withers anything
  that doesn't take cover
  Veronica's tattoo says SORRY NOT
  SORRY in her handwriting

  She's a perpetual practice
  A dogma that eats its own shit when it's nervous

  She's a bath in barbeque sauce
  She's a taco on a stick
  She cuts her arm to get some sunlight

MEREDITH BLANKINSHIP is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a recent transplant to Atlanta, GA. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Heavy Feather Review, Sink Review, Finery, Petri Press, and Sawbuck Poetry, among others.